


Meeting You Once Again

by arabmorgan



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27211288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: Donghyuck, Taeil, and the manifestation of love in five different lifetimes.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Moon Taeil
Comments: 24
Kudos: 113





	Meeting You Once Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dojaefairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dojaefairy/gifts).



> Years of major historical events are accurate, but that's probably about it when it comes to historical accuracy lol.
> 
> This is of course for the loveliest, most wonderful @dojaefairy. I hope you have the happiest birthday and I love you very very much! ♡＾▽＾♡

The universe was mostly kind. It was also very much a well-oiled machine – it had to be, to support almost 7.6 billion people at a time, a punishing feat by any stretch of the imagination. That was exactly why reincarnation existed, so that souls could be recycled where possible instead of new ones constantly having to be crafted painstakingly out of space dust and human essence.

A very finicky substance, human essence.

In that sense, it could be said that Lee Donghyuck was a bit of an anomaly. Not so much a dawn-of-the-apocalypse tear in the fold of reality, but more of a negligible programming error. A bug, if you would.

His soul reincarnated just fine, but his memory wipes tended to be a little dodgy for some reason, leaving him with wispy bits of his past lives floating distractingly around in his head. Nevertheless, it wasn’t grounds for complete soul destruction – that would be like putting an innocent puppy down just because it was missing a toenail. It did, however, make his lives a little more complicated than they had to be, and the universe was rightfully sorry for that.

That meant that she was, perhaps, just a smidgen kinder to Donghyuck than the billions of other lives in her care. His adversities were usually met with charmed success, and he was largely surrounded by people who loved him, familiar faces who followed him from life to life to ease his way.

But there was only one person whom the universe constantly dropped into Donghyuck’s path in every life – shoved violently into his face, almost. His one and only, if only the planets and stars would align and allow their romance to blossom.

The universe was kind. Unfortunately, it was the astronomical objects that took a little longer than expected to fall into place.

* * *

**1619 – 1655**

Donghyuck’s first childhood was mundane.

As the illegitimate son of a fairly wealthy merchant, Donghyuck was lucky enough that his father’s lawful wife had provided the family with only four daughters and a grand total of zero sons. His existence was a great relief to his father, and he grew up much like an oldest son despite his status. Tutors filtered in and out of his rooms solemnly, heaping praises obsequiously upon him whenever his father stopped by, and he was gifted his own horse when he was eight.

When he was ten, Donghyuck met Moon Taeil for the first time.

He was old, Donghyuck thought, with all the prideful derision of a preteen. Almost an adult, really. His face was sharper than Donghyuck’s, and fiercer too, any baby fat he might have had melted away through the toil of daily life.

Taeil was the son of Donghyuck’s tailor, and eventually he became one of Donghyuck’s only friends, even if it did take him half a year to stop referring to Donghyuck as _Young Master_. None of the other merchants’ sons would even look at him anyway – to them, he was a fraud, a bastard playing at being a legitimate son.

Taeil didn’t really have time for _fun_ , but Donghyuck didn’t mind all that much. They spent a lot of time together reading because Taeil enjoyed it and Donghyuck was simply desperate for the company. Taeil had been three steps away from being illiterate when they first met, but he was a fast learner, and he was almost better than Donghyuck before long.

When Donghyuck was twelve, Taeil took over his father’s business, and Donghyuck took to riding out some evenings to visit instead, since Taeil never had any more time to spare for his young friend.

“It must be boring to work so much,” Donghyuck muttered, just a little annoyed as he watched Taeil squint over various measurements and markings.

Taeil chuckled at that, his face lightening from its usual unsmiling mien. “Your father works too. We all need to eat, you know,” he said simply, and Donghyuck snorted, his nose crinkling in exasperation.

His favourite part of the night came when they sat side by side at the table with a small pot of tea before them, the latest book they had been reading propped open to the page marked by a woven red ribbon. Taeil’s voice was unfailingly smooth, more like sinking his teeth into soft cheese than the sweet stickiness of honey, and Donghyuck liked to cuddle into the older boy’s side whenever he read out loud.

Taeil’s arm was a warm weight over his shoulder, his voice a soothing jumble of syllables, but the sharp scent of citrus flower tea kept Donghyuck from nodding off completely.

Finally, Taeil laid the red ribbon down, its frayed ends sticking out of the bottom of the book, and squeezed Donghyuck’s shoulder lightly. “You should go before it gets too late,” he said, and Donghyuck pouted, but he let himself be pushed out the door with his book in his arms all the same.

The very next year, Taeil got married.

Donghyuck still visited when he could, but everything was strange now. Taeil’s wife was a lovely person, but she was the one Taeil put his arm around. She was the one Taeil smiled at when he read out loud. She was the one Taeil loved, and Donghyuck didn’t know how he felt about that.

He wasn’t a part of Taeil’s family, and the more he visited the more he realised that. Not that it stopped him from riding over every week – Donghyuck had been raised to be shameless, and he wasn’t about to deny himself this one good thing in his life. So what if he wasn’t a part of Taeil’s family? He wasn’t even really a part of his _own_ family either. His father’s wife hated him – it was easy enough to tell – and his half-sisters never paid any attention to him either.

When Donghyuck turned fifteen, his visits no longer involved any reading. Taeil’s new daughter took up far too much time and energy for their usual routine to continue. It was a brand-new experience for Donghyuck – his own father had been perfectly able to afford wet nurses and nannies for his children, but not Taeil. He was always up at ungodly hours of the night with his wife, cooing over the newest addition to their family.

“She’s pretty,” Donghyuck said one evening, peering over Taeil’s shoulder at the doe-eyed infant laying in her cradle.

“She is, isn’t she,” Taeil murmured, and the tenderness in his features lingered even as he looked from his daughter to Donghyuck. He patted Donghyuck’s arm lightly, one corner of his mouth tilting upwards, and Donghyuck smiled back, grateful as always to still be welcome in Taeil’s household.

Donghyuck was only seventeen when the Qing dynasty invaded the Joseon kingdom, and he was seventeen when he went to war.

When he returned home the following year, with shadowed eyes and weary steps, it was to find that Taeil and his family were gone. His house stood empty, the windows dark and forbidding, until finally a new family from the north moved in.

Donghyuck received a letter months later, explaining that Taeil had been hired as the personal tailor of a minor lord, a far more lucrative position than that of a general town tailor. His family had moved to the city, and he hoped that Donghyuck had made it through the war unscathed.

_Perhaps you can come and visit us one day_ , Taeil wrote warmly, and Donghyuck’s bottom lip trembled as his gaze traced across the delicate brushstrokes.

He wrote back with haste, promising to visit often, but his father took ill when he was twenty, and Donghyuck found himself married within months so that his father could see his only son with a family of his own.

His first child was born, and then his father died, all in quick succession, and Donghyuck quite suddenly found himself with a rather large inheritance and an equally pressing dearth of spare time.

The most exciting thing to happen to him the year he turned twenty-two was the minor fanfare that occurred when a Chinese lord passed through their town. He caught little more than a glimpse of an aristocratic nose and plush lips when delicate fingers drew the curtain of the carriage aside for just a moment, and even that faint impression was largely forgotten by nightfall.

Not that Donghyuck ever knew, but Dong Sicheng had just passed him by for the first time.

In the years to come, he continued to exchange letters faithfully with Taeil, who had after all been his only true friend throughout his childhood, but the two of them never did lay eyes on each other again in this lifetime.

* * *

**1732 - 1783**

Too far down the line of succession to be a threat to anyone but a royal prince nevertheless, Donghyuck’s second childhood was a little less mundane than his first.

Just like before, he met Moon Taeil for the first time when he was ten, when he was nothing more than a little boy with a puffed-out chest and delusions of grandeur.

He blinked up at the older boy standing before him with a sword at his side, scanning his placid features with youthful impatience – _he’s_ _almost an adult_ , Donghyuck thought with vague scorn, and for some reason that notion seemed to knock something loose in him.

A realisation, perhaps, or a recognition.

“Have we met before?” he asked, with all the dignity he could muster with his high and piping voice.

Taeil looked down at him curiously. “I don’t believe so, Your Highness,” he said politely. “Today is my first day in the palace.”

Donghyuck frowned, affronted at this slight to his memory. “I think we have,” he insisted, and he smirked at the faint twitch of his new bodyguard’s eyebrows.

“Perhaps you are right then, Your Highness,” Taeil responded, but it didn’t sound as if he really cared, and for whatever reason Donghyuck didn’t like that one bit. Turning, he flounced off in a huff, ignoring the soft pad of Taeil’s boots behind him.

King Yeongjo’s reign was a peaceful one, and for Donghyuck, that largely translated into _boring_. He grew skilled in archery and horseback riding, swordsmanship and calligraphy, often practicing endlessly with his cousins Jungwoo and Jeno. There just wasn’t much else to do considering he wasn’t all that interested in attending court.

Through it all, Taeil was always there too, a silent but watchful shadow.

Sometimes, Donghyuck requested for Taeil to read to him before he retired for the night, the bodyguard seated stiffly opposite him while he sipped on a cup of hot tea. The ritual comforted him somehow, like a lullaby long forgotten.

When Donghyuck was seventeen, he asked, “Do you like being a bodyguard? Do you like being _my_ bodyguard?” One corner of his mouth quirked up into a mischievous grin as he fixed a narrow-eyed stare on Taeil, who was blinking at him in surprise from the corner of the room.

“The truth, Your Highness?” Taeil said dryly, and Donghyuck almost laughed at the way his demeanour had warmed for that single moment. It had been happening more often, this slipping of formalities, and he found that he didn’t even mind the older man’s impertinence all that much.

“Of course.” Donghyuck raised his brows expectantly, hands clasped behind his back as he cocked his head in Taeil’s direction.

“You were a difficult child,” Taeil admitted after a moment, wryly, and Donghyuck snorted loudly. “But you have become a good man. It has always been an honour to keep you safe, Your Highness.”

Donghyuck blinked at the unexpected sentiment of the answer, and he turned away. “Thank you,” he said softly, with his back to Taeil, “for always keeping me safe.”

Taeil questioned Donghyuck for the first time when he was twenty and restless, when he had asked and failed to receive permission from the king to tour the surrounding lands. He had smashed a few teacups and kicked a cabinet over with all the petulance of a young man who rarely had his requests denied, and finally when he was hunched over and panting, Taeil had spoken.

“Do you like being a prince?” he asked, so unexpectedly that Donghyuck was quite caught off guard. He whirled around, brows furrowed and blood still pumping with furious adrenaline, but Taeil only looked back at him, as calm and unruffled as always.

Donghyuck’s lip curled into a sneer as he stalked up to Taeil, crowding the older man against the wall. “Are you trying to provoke me?” he demanded, and some part of his brain dimly registered that he was taller than Taeil – he probably had been for a while now, but it was that much more apparent up close, when he was looking right down his nose at Taeil’s soft features.

Taeil blinked at him, only the barest flicker of his eyes giving away his surprise, and then he lowered his gaze in surrender. “No, Your Highness,” he murmured, subservient in a way that he hadn’t been in a very long time, and just like that, the anger bled out of Donghyuck, leaving him hollow.

“Good,” he muttered, pulling away and kicking shards of porcelain out of his path as he went. He sat down at the table and stared at the soft green of the celadon teapot for a long moment, the silence around him buzzing in his ears.

“It’s lonely,” Donghyuck blurted suddenly, and he didn’t even know why he had said that, out of all the things that had been on his mind. “Jeno doesn’t speak to me anymore. He thinks it’s a competition, getting into the king’s good graces. I haven’t seen Jungwoo recently either, ever since he got involved in court business. That’s why I wanted to get out of the palace for a bit – it’s not that I hate being a prince. I know my life isn’t bad. I just – it’s lonely.”

He saw Taeil shift slightly out of the corner of his eye, and the movement alone – knowing that someone was there listening to him – was comforting.

“I keep thinking about how pathetic it is,” he muttered, tracing his finger along the polished wooden edge of the table. “I lost my jade ring in the snow once, and I had to dig around for it on my own. Did you know that? Me, a prince, down on his hands and knees scrabbling through the melting slush with my bare hands, alone.”

He heard Taeil’s soft exhalation, and then one of the older man’s palms came to rest against the back of his neck, warm and gentle. Donghyuck hadn’t even heard him move.

“The jade ring from your mother that you dropped near the pond?” Taeil asked quietly, and Donghyuck jerked slightly in surprise. “It had been snowing all day, hadn’t it? Who do you think held the parasol over you as you searched? Who wrapped you up in his cloak once you were done and sent for a warm bath for you?”

Donghyuck felt frozen in place for a long moment, playing the memory over and over in his head – the biting numbness that spread through his fingers as he sifted desperately through the powdery snow, but also the scratchiness of a rough wool cloak against his skin, and Taeil’s hand firm against his elbow.

“You have never been alone, Your Highness,” Taeil said gently, and at the kindness in his voice a sob burst out of Donghyuck. Twisting around, he pressed his face into Taeil’s stomach, clinging on to the front of his robes like a lifeline as the bodyguard rubbed his back tenderly.

“Don’t ever leave me alone,” he whispered, and he felt like a child once more, another memory rushing back to him with a suddenness that dazed him. The day Jeno had pushed him a little too hard and he had skinned his palms on the rough courtyard floor – Taeil had held him like this too, held him until he stopped sniffling his little-boy tears and went back to playing, the moment swiftly forgotten.

“I won’t,” Taeil promised, and later he read to Donghyuck until the prince fell asleep, his eyes still bloodshot and red-rimmed.

In the end, Prince Donghyuck never did get married, and when he left Gyeonggi to help King Yeongjo with the management of another province, his bodyguard since he was only ten years of age accompanied him. Even when he began to age and slow, Moon Taeil kept his promise and remained by his prince’s side until the day his soul left his body.

* * *

**1806 – 1859**

Throughout his third childhood, Donghyuck always felt an odd sense of _wrongness_ , like he had misplaced something but couldn’t quite remember what it was he had lost.

The feeling eased somewhat when he met Lee Jeno and Na Jaemin in school. There was something about Jeno in particular that drew Donghyuck to him – the way Jeno’s eyes smiled along with his mouth, and the ease with which they played together, a teasing push-and-pull that formed as naturally as if they had known each other forever.

By the time they separated, he could almost have fancied himself half in love with Jeno, if only for the fact that Jeno felt a little like the missing puzzle piece Donghyuck had been living without for such a long time. But Jeno and Jaemin were leaving for the city to take the civil service examination together, and Donghyuck was staying put to pursue his interest in medicine.

When he waved goodbye to his friends as they rode away, bright-eyed and excited, he was surprised to find that he felt mostly fine. Not that he had ever put a name to those feelings, but he supposed he couldn’t have been _that_ much in love with Jeno after all.

Donghyuck apprenticed to the local town physician at seventeen. It was a thankless job – his master was aged and possibly not quite fit to actually be a physician any longer, with a tendency to nag excessively and to forget to pay Donghyuck at times, but when he had his wits about him he was a decent enough teacher.

When Donghyuck was nineteen, his master sold his clinic to a newcomer from the south, passed his apprentice along as a condition of the sale, and finally retired.

When Donghyuck was nineteen, he met Moon Taeil for the first time, and it felt like coming home – or, more accurately, like something long lost and precious had returned to him at last.

“Hello,” Donghyuck said quietly as he dipped into a low bow on their first meeting, all his usual bravado somehow escaping the moment he set eyes on Taeil. The man only smiled distractedly at Donghyuck as he looked around the run-down building, trailing his fingers along the cracked wood of the counter and nudging at the creaky waiting stools.

“Donghyuck,” Taeil said at last, and Donghyuck leaped to attention with all the attentiveness of a well-trained dog. “I’m going to fix this place up, and you’re going to help me.” He turned to the younger man then, smiling that small, thoughtful smile of his, and Donghyuck drank in the sight of Taeil’s every feature with poorly concealed amazement.

Taeil would never be head-turning in the way that Jaemin was, with his sharp features and toothy smile, but everything about him felt _right_. He felt like someone Donghyuck had been waiting for, and Donghyuck would have plucked the very stars out of the sky for Taeil if it meant seeing that soft half-smile every day.

It was irrational, of course, but Donghyuck didn’t care. In his eyes, Moon Taeil could do no wrong.

Taeil was young, kind and good-looking. He was intelligent, successful and, as Donghyuck eventually discovered mid-way through their reconstruction of the entire clinic, also unexpectedly wealthy. Wealthy enough that his presence as a mere physician in a small town would almost be suspect if he didn’t clearly love his job so much.

He was also, as it turned out, generally terrible at anything that didn’t involve medicine.

At twenty, Donghyuck decided that if he needed for whatever reason to find another line of work, he would probably make a good caregiver, especially to bumbling yet well-meaning physicians who utterly lacked any sense of self-preservation at all.

“Taeil,” Donghyuck said sternly as he leaned in the doorway of the examination room, because he had dropped the honorifics at some point in the past month and the older man hadn’t even batted an eyelid. “Your dinner’s getting cold.”

Taeil looked up, smiling awkwardly in that mildly flustered manner of his. “Was that the last patient?” he asked, craning his neck to look past Donghyuck as if he might be hiding a dying man behind his back.

Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “The moon is up. I told them to come back tomorrow,” he muttered, finally entering the room and dragging Taeil to his feet. “I really don’t know how you can store all that knowledge in your head but probably can’t even remember what you had for breakfast this morning.”

Taeil sniffed scornfully at that, but the fact that he did not in fact immediately recite what he had had for breakfast proved Donghyuck right. Donghyuck was always right when it came to Taeil.

By the time he was twenty-one, it was no secret that Donghyuck was the one essentially running the entire clinic. He had taken over first the accounting, and then the herb inventory from Taeil after the dozenth time their order list had somehow gotten misplaced on the physician’s endlessly disorganised desk. In truth, Donghyuck loved it – he thrived in the chaos, which he had come to realise was far more entertaining than sitting down and speaking to ill folks all day.

He even had his own assistant now, a hapless young man named Jisung whom he gleefully sent scurrying about on countless little errands each day.

“What would I ever do without you, Donghyuck,” Taeil said one night, sitting at his desk while Donghyuck tidied the stacks of paper littered across it. His smile was small and distant, like he was looking off into another world, and Donghyuck stared at him for a moment, at the wistful curve of his bottom lip and the gentle slope of his nose.

He wondered if it would ever stop, this warmth that flickered in his chest every time he so much as glanced Taeil’s way. He wondered if he felt like home to Taeil too.

“Lucky for you,” he scoffed as he pulled Taeil out of his chair, curling their palms warmly against each other, “you’ll never have to find out.”

Taeil laughed, affection crinkling his eyes as he shook his head at Donghyuck. “You can’t be planning to be my assistant for the rest of your life,” he insisted, tugging Donghyuck back around to face him.

Donghyuck blinked, startled at their sudden proximity, before focusing on the laser sharpness of Taeil’s gaze studying his expression.

“Why not?” he said casually. “You pay me well and I like it here.”

_I like you_ , Donghyuck thought, and something crackled between them then, as if his thoughts had coalesced into intent. Donghyuck’s lashes fluttered slightly, his eyes dropping to Taeil’s lips, dry and chapped as they always were, too busy caring for others to look out for himself. He rocked back on his heels, and then forward.

The next moment, Taeil reached out and rapped his knuckles lightly against Donghyuck’s forehead, startling him. “I always knew you were out for my money,” the older man teased. “Stay then. I like having you here.”

Donghyuck faltered for only a moment. He threw another glance at Taeil, but the other man was as imperturbable as ever, and Donghyuck looked away, exhaling quietly. Whether intentionally or not, the moment was undoubtedly ruined.

_Stay_ , Taeil had said.

And Donghyuck replied, with all the solemnity of a promise he had once received, “I will.”

* * *

**1912 – 1990**

Growing up in a Korea struggling under Japanese rule, Donghyuck’s fourth childhood was nothing short of tumultuous. He grew up neighbours with a certain Moon Taeil, who often came over to babysit while their parents were out working, but even that only made a bad situation marginally better.

At eight, he fled to China with his hand clutched tight in Taeil’s. It was the last time either of them saw their parents.

When Donghyuck was nine, Taeil managed to enrol him in a public school in Jilin, and that was where he met Huang Renjun for the first time. They got along largely because Donghyuck was no longer the boy he used to be, so loud and forceful that he would probably have annoyed Renjun into keeping his distance before they could ever get to know one other.

The new Donghyuck was quiet and easily frightened, and he still slept in Taeil’s bed every night despite having his own mattress in the same room. Renjun took one look at the wide-eyed, pale-faced newcomer and took Donghyuck under his kind, somewhat sarcastic wing on his very first day.

By the time Donghyuck was thirteen, he was near-fluent in Chinese, and affectionately embarrassed by the fact that Taeil had never quite taken to the language in the way he had. Taeil largely worked amongst the other Korean immigrants in the area, and his Chinese was horribly fractured at best. At home, too, he spoke to Donghyuck solely in Korean, a strange hesitation crossing his face every time the younger boy slipped into a phrase or two of Chinese.

“It’s not that hard, hyung,” Donghyuck whined, not for the first time, as he clung to Taeil’s arm, letting himself be dragged around the kitchen as Taeil attempted to cook their dinner in peace. “You can practice with me if you want. Renjun says that my Chinese sounds really good now. But honestly, if you’d gone to school too you wouldn’t be having this problem.”

Donghyuck giggled obliviously as he laid his cheek against Taeil’s still shoulder, which he now had no trouble reaching. He’d be taller than Taeil soon – that was what Taeil always said to him, every time he ruffled Donghyuck’s hair with a smile.

It was only at fifteen that Donghyuck finally realised the magnitude of Taeil’s sacrifices for him.

“Dude, you’ve been living here for seven years,” Renjun said one day, sounding vaguely amazed. “That’s almost half your life.”

Donghyuck snorted. “I can’t believe I’ve known _you_ almost half my life. What did I ever do to deserve such misfortune?”

Renjun glared at him for a moment before leaping bodily onto Donghyuck and attempting to headlock him into unconsciousness.

Later, Donghyuck thought about the fact that he was already older than Taeil had been when they had first set foot in Jilin. He thought about fourteen-year-old Taeil with sweat beading on his brow and thick calluses on his fingers, working himself to the bone while Donghyuck was left to entertain himself at home. He thought about how he had told Taeil he should have gone to school to learn Chinese, as if Taeil had ever had a spare moment in the past seven years.

That night, he crawled into Taeil’s bed for the first time in what felt like ages. Taeil muttered unintelligibly as he turned over, brows furrowing at the sudden rush of cold air that was Donghyuck flipping the covers so that he could get in. Carefully, Donghyuck fit himself warmly against Taeil, setting his arm over Taeil’s waist and burying his nose into the older man’s soft hair, cropped short for convenience.

“I love you, hyung,” he whispered, but Taeil only snored lightly in response.

When Donghyuck was twenty, Jilin fell under Japanese control, and he met Nakamoto Yuta for the first time.

He was Donghyuck’s new manager at work, and he was nice enough, in Donghyuck’s opinion – not that there was much that could go wrong in such a simple administrative job. Sometimes they went out for supper after work with Donghyuck’s other colleague, another Korean immigrant named Dongyoung, and they generally had an interesting time communicating via body language and a complicated mishmash of Korean, Japanese and Chinese.

Taeil never really developed a liking for Yuta, but Donghyuck thought that the Japanese man was just lonely.

Donghyuck was twenty-one when he finally managed to save enough to buy Taeil a battered second-hand piano for their tiny flat. It had been more than a decade, but he still distantly remembered what the music room in Taeil’s family house had looked like – pastel walls and translucent floral curtains, the shelves filled with various musical books and family photos.

The piano must have belonged to Taeil’s mother, he realised now, but mostly he remembered sitting still as a young child while Taeil’s fingers flew across the keys, creating magic out of sound alone. He had never quite forgotten the beauty of those moments.

Taeil burst into ugly tears the moment he laid eyes on the piano, and Donghyuck could clearly see the trembling of his fingers as he ran his hand across the black and white keys, polished to a dull shine. “I don’t even know if I remember how to play anything,” he whispered, pressing down on the middle C and closing his eyes at the sweet note that rang out.

He wrapped Donghyuck up in a crushing hug, and Donghyuck pressed a kiss to Taeil’s cheek, his own smile shaky with emotion.

“You don’t have to work so hard anymore, hyung,” he said. “You’ve already done so much. I love you.”

Taeil blinked tearily at Donghyuck, and his smile was wistful. “I remember you being so small, you know,” he murmured. “I thought it was so unfair that you got stuck with me – I was just a stupid teenager. I remember wondering why the universe wouldn’t send someone better to take care of you. I was so terrified that I was going to do something wrong, that I would look away and lose you. I didn’t want you to be ashamed of me.”

Donghyuck had never wanted to kiss Taeil more.

“No one could have done a better job than you,” he promised. “I would never, ever be ashamed of you.”

Taeil’s smile was the slow dawning of the sun, blinding in its brilliance. “I love you, Hyuckie,” he said quietly, and he tiptoed just a little to press his lips lightly to Donghyuck’s temple. It was the pure affection of a brother, of a childhood friend forced into surrogate parenthood too early, and Donghyuck knew right then that he would never get to kiss Taeil on the mouth in this lifetime.

He didn’t mind. He loved Taeil too much to let it matter to him – for Donghyuck, being in Taeil’s presence was already enough happiness in itself.

* * *

**2000 – present**

Donghyuck’s fifth childhood was far more comfortable than most of his previous ones. He grew up loved and indulged, with a multitude of younger siblings to keep his wild ways in check.

He was an adventurous child, always ready to explore new places and try new things. His parents called him outgoing and his teachers called him hard-headed, but as he grew older Donghyuck recognised this drive in himself as _yearning_. Something out there was calling to him, and if it wouldn’t come to him he would simply have to go to it.

He joined SM Entertainment at fourteen, the very same year as Moon Taeil, and the moment he set eyes on the older boy, nothing was ever the same for Donghyuck again.

He liked to call it fate, even if his friends refused to call it anything but a crush – whatever it was, Donghyuck knew with all the unshakable certainty of a teenage boy that Moon Taeil would one day be his.

“Don’t look, but Taeil hyung’s passing by,” Jeno muttered out of the corner of his mouth, while Jaemin snorted about as loudly as a honking truck. Donghyuck flattened his lips into a thin line and stared fixedly at his phone, all the while vividly fantasising about suffocating Jeno with a pillow.

“I don’t get it. What’s the obsession with Taeil hyung?” Mark looked down at the three of them from where he was leaning against the wall some distance away, his face scrunched up as if he was working out a particularly difficult problem.

“It’s not _us_ – it’s Donghyuck’s obsession,” Jaemin said lazily, drawling out his words with a sly grin, and Donghyuck actually did leap up this time. He grabbed Jaemin threateningly by the collar of his shirt, but the other boy only began to laugh hysterically.

“I just like Taeil hyung’s _voice_ ,” Donghyuck insisted, pushing Jaemin backwards into Jeno and stalking over to Mark’s side in a huff. Mark only gave him an odd look before glancing away.

At seventeen, Donghyuck finally made his debut in the very same sub-unit as Taeil – why him and not Renjun or Jeno or Jaemin when they were all the same age, he had no idea, but he wasn’t about to complain.

“Haechannie,” Taeil would always say with a fond smile whenever he caught Donghyuck’s eye, but there were so many members in 127, and only one of Taeil.

Seeing Taeil play around with the other members always made Donghyuck feel indefinably weird. It wasn’t exactly jealousy, just an odd sort of bewilderment that he didn’t even understand himself, like some part of him wasn’t used to Taeil paying attention to other people. It made no sense, because Taeil had never paid him much attention in the first place anyway.

He drifted into Taeil’s orbit ever so slowly, but eventually Donghyuck realised with delight that while Taeil rarely made the first move, he would accept almost any form of affection bestowed upon him with patient grace, a trait that Donghyuck immediately began to take full advantage of.

Whatever Donghyuck thought he could get away with, he made sure to do.

He squeezed himself in beside Taeil whenever he could, revelling in the small, faintly confused smiles that the older man would always give him before turning back to whatever he had been doing before.

He kissed Taeil everywhere he could reach as if the cameras didn’t exist – on the cheek, on the neck, on the hand. He clung to him like a limpet and nuzzled his face into Taeil’s often hoodie-covered shoulders. He made himself conspicuously available each time he thought the other might want to leave the dorm for a meal.

Best of all, however, was the fact that he got to hear Taeil sing.

Taeil had never read to him in this lifetime, and perhaps he never would, but this – just the two of them crammed into a tiny coin karaoke booth, grinning at each other as they belted out their favourite ballads – was so much more than enough for Donghyuck.

“I’m hungry,” he said with a pout as they exited the booth, pulling his face mask up and adjusting his cap.

Taeil glanced over at him, and Donghyuck could tell by the raise of his cheeks and the arch of his eyes that he was smiling. “Let’s go get food then,” he said easily, and Donghyuck gave a tiny, triumphant squeak of excitement.

“I like you, hyung,” he said dreamily, and Taeil barked out a laugh as he tugged Donghyuck along beside him.

It became another habit of sorts. Anytime Taeil did anything remotely nice, or played along with Donghyuck’s jokes, or simply whenever Donghyuck felt like saying it, which was rather often – _I like you_ , he would murmur, as Taeil smiled indulgently at him.

_I like you too much._

_My love, Moon Taeil._

_Let’s be together forever._

Mark always said that he’d run out of cheesy phrases to coo at Taeil one day, but Donghyuck disagreed. There were just too many things he wanted to say.

Donghyuck was twenty when NCT 127 set off on their very first concert tour. To nobody’s surprise, he brought his laptop along with him, almost vibrating with excitement at the thought of 5AM sleepless nights spent gaming that he could cheerfully blame on jetlag.

In Los Angeles, however, his laptop saw very little use. Instead, Donghyuck threw himself onto Taeil’s bed the moment he got out of the shower, revelling in the presence of his roommate for the week and pretending not to hear Taeil’s wheeze of surprise as the air was driven out of his lungs.

“Haechan –” Taeil sighed, but Donghyuck only buried his face stubbornly against the other man’s shoulder and shook his head. “You must be tired, huh?” He felt a hand stroke against his damp hair, and then Taeil shifted gingerly, moving into a position that would allow him to keep his arms around Donghyuck while still using his phone.

Donghyuck wasn’t tired, not at all, but he ended up falling asleep without even meaning to anyway, Taeil’s serene presence calming him into unconsciousness.

The faint radiance of dawn was filtering in through the thick curtains when he opened his eyes, and his neck was sore. With a groan, Donghyuck lifted his head and realised with the dazed indifference of the newly-awoken that he had been drooling on Taeil’s chest.

“What time is it?” Taeil muttered, jostled into momentary wakefulness. He squinted up at Donghyuck, eyes slitted with sleep and dark hair falling in unruly tufts about his face. The corner of his mouth quirked up into a faint smile of greeting, and Donghyuck smiled back without having to think about it, every part of him softening into contentment at Taeil’s obvious disorientation.

He rocked back and forth slowly on his elbows, his gaze tracing idly across Taeil’s face as he thought about ducking in for a kiss on the cheek. _Or the lips_ , his sleep-addled brain helpfully supplied, and Donghyuck blinked stupidly at said lips for a beat longer than was strictly necessary.

When his eyes flicked back up, it was to find Taeil staring right at him, suddenly seeming far more awake than before. Donghyuck froze guiltily, watching the transparent play of emotions across Taeil’s face – first confusion, and then something unnervingly like realisation, or perhaps disbelief, before the shutters fell once more and his usual mild expression settled on him like a mask.

When Donghyuck scrambled off to the bathroom, Taeil quietly let him go.

They prepared for the day in a stifled, unfamiliar silence, until all of a sudden Taeil said, “Haechan-ah,” and Donghyuck jumped, as if Taeil had shouted into his ear rather than speaking from across the room.

The entire situation was ridiculous. He was Lee Haechan – brave, bold and annoying, and utterly shameless about it. There was no reason for him to be flinching away from Taeil. He had been head over heels in love with the man for _years_ , for crying out loud!

So he said it.

“Hyung, I’m in love with you.” He turned and met Taeil’s eyes head-on, his chin lifting defiantly as if daring Taeil to dismiss his abrupt confession.

Taeil blinked once, twice, and then he let out a soft laugh. “Then why do you look so angry?” he asked, in a tone that was halfway between teasing and a genuine question.

Donghyuck abruptly deflated. “Hyung…” he whined, padding over to nuzzle his way into a hug. As always, Taeil welcomed him with open arms, his hands coming to rest lightly against Donghyuck’s waist. There was so much about Taeil that he loved, but this perhaps most of all – that he never pushed Donghyuck away, that he was Donghyuck’s rock amidst the storm, no matter where and when.

“I’m sorry I never realised,” Taeil said quietly, and Donghyuck closed his eyes, feeling Taeil’s head come to rest against his. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen better. Lee Haechan…you’re so bright, so full of love – I never imagined that so much of it might be for me. I think that maybe I didn’t dare to let myself believe it.”

Donghyuck let out a small noise at that and tightened his grip on Taeil. _I love you I love you I love you_ , it meant, but also, _You should totally believe it_.

“Let’s just take things slow for now, shall we?” Taeil said gently. Donghyuck’s face fell, his brows drawing together and lips forming swiftly into his trademark pout, but Taeil leaned forward and kissed the very tip of his nose, shocking Donghyuck into wide-eyed silence.

To Doyoung’s immense unease, Donghyuck was uncharacteristically buoyantly for the rest of the day, as if he had some sort of unholy prank hidden up his sleeve – but there was no prank, of course, only Donghyuck’s unfailing certainty that everything in his life was going wonderfully and exactly as it should.

It took Lee Donghyuck four lifetimes and twenty years to confess his feelings to Moon Taeil.

It took him four lifetimes and twenty-one years to get his first decidedly non-platonic kiss from the love of his life.

“It was love at first sight, you know,” he said dreamily, sounding pleased.

Taeil looked mildly amused. “But why?”

Donghyuck shrugged, tracing random patterns on the back of Taeil’s hand with a finger. “You felt…right. Like someone I’d been looking for my whole life. When you smiled at me, I felt safe.”

Taeil chuckled, his breath puffing warm across the top of Donghyuck’s head. “Sounds like fate to me,” he said dryly.

Donghyuck shifted slightly, angling his face upward towards Taeil with an expression of utmost seriousness on his face. “It is,” he said firmly. “The stars and planets must have aligned to allow us to meet.”

Taeil stared at him, shaking his head slightly as his eyes crinkled into an bemused smile. “Oh, Haechan,” he sighed, and then he tipped Donghyuck’s chin up with two fingers and leaned in. Donghyuck’s eyes slid shut, his fingers fisting into the fabric of Taeil’s shirt, and he let out a long, deep sigh of satisfaction when their lips met.

Ten minutes later, Johnny opened the door to his room, took in the scene before him, and promptly shut the door once more, his expression wry with a mixture of affection and exasperation.

“ _Finally_ ,” he muttered, and the universe whole-heartedly agreed.


End file.
